Not only had he been forced to flee like a whipped dog, but he had actually left the legendary Executioner's Blade behind in the boat.
Heavens bear witness! Zabuza had lived a long, blood-soaked life as an elite assassin and a feared missing-nin. This was the very first time he had ever felt so utterly, pathetically helpless.
Furthermore, with that rotund pig Gato constantly chattering and shrieking in his ear, Zabuza's headache was reaching critical mass. He had half a mind to just decapitate the billionaire right then and there.
"Whatever freakish ninja you provoked, you deal with it yourself," Zabuza snarled, turning away from Gato. "My contract was strictly to eliminate that bridge builder and his escort! Not to fight monsters!"
Having lost the Executioner's Blade—a priceless, legendary artifact—Zabuza desperately needed to squeeze more funds out of Gato to compensate for the catastrophic loss. Otherwise, this entire venture was a massive net negative.
"What do you mean, 'deal with it myself'?! You want to raise your price *now*? I already paid you thirty million ryo upfront!" Gato shrieked, his face turning purple with rage.
In his heart, Gato had already cursed Zabuza's entire bloodline a thousand times over. *Damn it all! Every single one of these mercenary ninja is greedier than I am!* They gladly took tens of millions of his money, yet the moment they faced a slight hiccup, they demanded exorbitant hazard pay.
The key frustration was that Gato genuinely believed he had only asked them to assassinate a defenseless, drunken old man. He couldn't comprehend why they were demanding such outrageous fees.
But what Gato didn't know was the reality of the situation: Zabuza was, relatively speaking, an honest contractor. He worked hard and risked his life for what was essentially a meager wage compared to the actual threat level. Konoha had incorrectly assessed the mission rank for the Land of Waves based on Tazuna's lies, but hadn't Gato also catastrophically underestimated Konoha's response?
"Fine! Tell me, what exactly will it take for you to go out there and do your damn job?!"
No matter how furious Gato was, he had no choice but to compromise. He was backed into a corner; the strongest person under his direct command was that rogue Chunin running the warehouse. And since Gato had just received word that the Chunin and his entire crew had been neutralized without a trace, his conventional thugs were entirely useless against this new threat.
"Fine. I will complete the contract..." Zabuza turned back, his eyes cold and dead. "...But I require double the original fee. Now."
"Alright! Fine! No problem!" Gato spat, waving his hands frantically. As long as Zabuza could get rid of these interfering Konoha ninja, what was a little extra money? He could easily extort it back from the impoverished villagers once the bridge was permanently halted.
At the same time, Zabuza never suspected that the Konoha escort team he was about to hunt down was directly associated with the monstrous brat who had forced him to abandon his weapon. It was a logical assumption; no one in their right mind would guess that a simple, low-budget bridge-building escort mission would involve an expert capable of exuding Tailed Beast-level pressure.
Zabuza quickly left Gato's opulent headquarters, signaling his loyal partner, Haku, to follow.
"Lord Zabuza... your greatsword?" Haku asked softly, his masked face tilted in puzzlement as he noticed the iconic Executioner's Blade was missing from Zabuza's back.
"Don't mention it," Zabuza grunted, his face darkening. "I ran into a highly skilled, specialized opponent while scouting the waterways."
"In the end, the opponent possessed a superior environmental advantage, and managed to separate me from my weapon during our clash," Zabuza lied smoothly, though his pride stung.
He couldn't possibly admit the truth to his devoted subordinate. He couldn't say, *'I was so terrified by a brat's chakra aura that I dropped my sword and dove into the river like a coward.'* If he confessed that, his infallible, demonic image in Haku's pure heart would be irreparably shattered.
"Who could possibly be skilled enough to disarm Lord Zabuza in combat?!" Haku gasped, genuinely shocked. If even his master wasn't a match for this unknown opponent, then retrieving the Executioner's Blade seemed like a near-impossible dream.
"That person's chakra... it was terrifying," Zabuza murmured, genuine apprehension bleeding into his voice as he recalled the encounter.
The density and sheer volume of the chakra inside that boy was even more frightening than the Tailed Beasts. Zabuza knew this for a fact because he had personally witnessed a Jinchuriki in action; he had dared to orchestrate an assassination attempt against Yagura, the Fourth Mizukage and Three-Tails Jinchuriki.
But even Yagura, in his fully transformed state, hadn't exerted the same primal, suffocating pressure as the boy in the boat.
"Forget it. The sword is gone for now. Let's focus on scamming the rest of Gato's money and finishing the original contract," Zabuza decided, shaking his head to clear it.
"Since that unknown ninja rescued the hostages, they will inevitably return them to the main village," Zabuza deduced, analyzing the tactical situation. "We don't need to hunt the monster. We just need to monitor the village perimeter and wait for the bridge builder's escort to arrive."
It must be said that Zabuza's tactical reasoning was perfectly sound. But he never could have imagined the absurd coincidence of who exactly he would be facing next.
---
"Kakashi-sensei, this mission is way too smooth, isn't it? It feels like there's absolutely no challenge at all!"
At that exact moment, Kakashi's Team 7, escorting the heavily intoxicated Tazuna, finally arrived on the main island of the Land of Waves via a rented civilian boat.
Naruto was complaining loudly, his hands clasped behind his head. Thanks to Shiro taking a shortcut and systematically annihilating every single one of Gato's highway ambushes and patrols along the route, Kakashi's group had encountered literally zero resistance. It had been a peaceful, incredibly boring stroll.
It was purely a standard C-rank escort mission.
No wonder Naruto was dissatisfied. He had been hoping to engage in exciting, life-or-death combat missions like the ones he imagined Shiro was currently undertaking.
"Don't be overly ambitious, Naruto," Kakashi chided gently, his single eye crinkling in a smile as he read his little orange book. As their Jonin instructor, it was his duty to temper their expectations.
"Shiro is permitted to undertake high-level, independent missions because low-level tasks are completely meaningless for his continued growth," Kakashi explained. "His baseline capabilities already far exceed the parameters of standard Genin work. But you three... you are still far from reaching that level of independence."
---
!
"So, Naruto, you must never..."
Kakashi stopped mid-sentence. His visible eye snapped wide open, his relaxed posture instantly vanishing as his combat instincts screamed.
In a fraction of a second, Kakashi sensed a dense, hostile surge of chakra spiking from the surrounding mist.
"Everyone! Get down!" Kakashi roared, dropping his book and blurring into motion.
*BOOM!*
A cluster of concealed explosive tags detonated directly in the path of Team 7. Thanks to Kakashi's lightning-fast reaction time and a hastily erected Earth Style mud wall, the genin and the bridge builder were shielded from the shrapnel and blast wave.
The powerful explosion not only put Team 7 on absolute high alert, but the echoing shockwave was also clearly heard by Shiro, who was currently standing in the center of the village square.
"Interesting," Shiro murmured, turning his head toward the distant plume of smoke rising above the tree line. "Looks like Zabuza just doesn't know when to quit."
Having already safely delivered the rescued children to their weeping parents, Shiro didn't hesitate. He activated his spatial jutsu and immediately leaped toward the battle's location.
The situation in the forest clearing was rapidly deteriorating.
Kakashi Hatake's combat prowess was a truly fascinating, inconsistent variable. In the original timeline, his ability to fight Zabuza to a standstill was impressive. However, the key absurdity here was that even though Zabuza was currently fighting *without* his legendary Executioner's Blade, relying solely on standard kunai and Water Style, Kakashi was *still* only fighting him to a bloody standstill.
*If Kakashi's 'adaptive combat scaling' were a system entry,* Shiro thought wryly as he approached, *it would definitely be classified as a Gold-tier passive trait.* The man literally scaled his power level to exactly match whoever he was fighting, regardless of their actual strength.
"As expected of the legendary Copy Ninja, Kakashi of the Sharingan!" Zabuza taunted, panting slightly as he parried a kunai strike.
Zabuza hadn't expected his target's escort to be such a high-profile, infamous Jonin. Truly, the shinobi world was full of unpleasant surprises. Why on earth was an elite asset of Kakashi's caliber taking pathetic C-rank escort missions for a broke bridge builder? Was Konoha trying to monopolize the entire mercenary market?
"Zabuza Momochi... the Demon of the Hidden Mist," Kakashi growled, his Sharingan blazing as he analyzed the mercenary's movements. "Everyone, stay back and protect Tazuna! This man is incredibly dangerous!"
After a rapid, blinding exchange of taijutsu and water jutsu, the unimaginable happened.
No one, not even Sasuke, expected it. Kakashi, the elite Jonin whom the genin had placed all their hopes in, made a critical tactical error while trying to protect his students. He stepped backward into a seemingly harmless puddle.
"Got you," Zabuza sneered.
In a flash of movement, Zabuza capitalized on the mistake, instantly trapping Kakashi within an inescapable sphere of dense, swirling water.
"Water Prison Jutsu!"
"Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto screamed, absolute panic gripping his heart as he watched their invincible teacher get captured.
"Heh heh... can't move now, can you, Kakashi?" Zabuza chuckled darkly, his hand firmly submerged in the sphere, maintaining the prison.
"Now... I'll take care of the brats and the old man!"
Zabuza formed a one-handed seal. "Water Clone Jutsu!"
While Zabuza's main body remained anchored to the Water Prison, a perfect replica of the mercenary materialized from the lake and charged toward Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura. Although it possessed only a fraction of the original's strength, a Jonin's clone was not something fresh Genin could easily defeat.
"Wood Style: Silent Strangling Binding Jutsu!"
A calm, familiar voice echoed through the mist.
At the critical moment, before the Water Clone could even raise its kunai, thick, flexible wooden branches erupted violently from the damp soil. They whipped through the air like vipers, wrapping tightly around the clone's limbs and torso.
With a sickening, wet crunch, the branches forcefully squeezed, instantly crushing the Water Clone and dissolving it back into a harmless puddle of water on the grass.
"It's Shiro!" Sakura cried out, her previous terror instantly vanishing, replaced by overwhelming relief as she saw the boy step out of the mist.
"He... he broke it in one move?" Naruto stared blankly at the puddle.
The terrifying clone of the man who had effortlessly captured their Jonin sensei couldn't even last a single second against Shiro. Just how astronomically strong was Shiro now?!
"It's him again... right at the crucial moment," Sasuke muttered, his fists clenched tightly. He didn't know whether he should feel profound relief or burning, bitter jealousy.
Sasuke had just activated his Sharingan, preparing to risk his life to fight the clone and prove his worth. But before he could even take a step, Shiro had arrived and solved the life-or-death crisis casually, cleanly, and decisively.
*When... when will I ever be able to catch up to him?!* Sasuke thought, his eyes filled with dark unwillingness.
"How is that possible?!"
Hidden deep in the branches of a nearby tree, Haku couldn't believe what he was seeing.
*Lord Zabuza's combat clone was just destroyed... effortlessly?* Haku found the scene before him incredibly hard to process. The key point of disbelief was that the opponent who had performed the feat was just a child, roughly the same age as Haku himself.
"Lord Zabuza..." Haku murmured, genuine worry gripping his heart. For the first time, he began to seriously doubt if his master could handle this situation.
"Well, well, Zabuza," Shiro said, walking slowly toward the lake, his hands resting casually in his pockets. He looked at the stunned mercenary with eyes full of playful, arrogant mockery. "I honestly didn't expect you to still be hanging around the Land of Waves after our last meeting."